Pricing & Brokerage

Customer Service

Exposure

Pros

Cons

Sharekhan is a full-service stockbroking company in India which began its operations in February 2000 through its parent company S.S. Kantilal Ishwarlal Securities Limited (SSKI).

Sharekhan Review

It is one of the leading stockbrokers in the space with around 5% of retail broking market share as per the latest number and is currently ranked 4th overall.

With a presence in over 575 cities, Sharekhan has around 170 branches and 2200+ franchise partners. Sharekhan was one of the very few stockbrokers to have an early online presence and still backs itself with high tech trading softwares and platforms.

“Sharekhan was sold out to BNP Paribas for ₹2200 Crore. At the time of its sold out, this full-service stockbroker had a base of 12 lakh clients.”

Being a full-service stockbroker, it provides research and recommendations to its clients through their in-house research team of experts. These tips and reports are at both the fundamental and technical level for long-term investors and short-term traders respectively.

The quality of these research reports and tips are just average though.

Apart from the research, the broker provides stock market basics education through Sharekhan Classrooms. This online service is available to the clients of this broker where traders and investors are taught different stock market concepts at basic, intermediate and advanced levels.

At the same time, Sharekhan with its premium services sets up representative or relationship managers with its clients so that their portfolio can be individually monitored. However, this service is given major attention when your overall turnover or stock market deposit is pretty decent, let’s say in the range of at least ₹5 Lakh or more.

Sharekhan Trading Platforms

Trade Tiger is a stock trading application that customers can use through their desktops or laptops. It is claimed to be as powerful as the terminal of a broker. Tradetiger helps you to trade across different financial segments including equities, currencies, commodities, derivatives, IPOs and mutual funds.

Since the platform is a hybrid cloud-based application, traders can create customized market watch lists and access those from different machines by logging into the system. Tradetiger comes with the following features as well:

High-quality charts for detailed research and stock analysis

Instant pay in/pay out via 14 national banks

Access to all trading calls, market tips by the technical and fundamental research desk

Customized alerts and notifications based on user preferences for quick reminders on stocks and exchanges

Check out a few demos of the platform here:

It is a pretty mature trading application and has been used by a huge number of clients for more than a decade. The application has seen quite a few upgrades and technology enhancements over these years.

Sharekhan has had a strange history when it comes to mobile apps. Sharekhan has launched multiple mobile apps in the last few years and when one app gets a lot of negativity in terms of ratings and feedbacks, instead of incorporating those feedbacks, the broker simply launched a new mobile app altogether.

Most recently they have launched a new app with their brand name itself. The application. The app, until now, has received a relatively positive response from both Google Play as well as Apple store based on speed, performance, and accuracy.

The app comes with the following features:

Trading facility across market exchanges

Live reports, news, market trends

Fund transfer facility from bank to Sharekhan account

Here is the demo and walk through video of ShareMobile:

Some of the concerns with the mobile app include:

Login issues

Performance goes down in small cities with users having lower internet connection bandwidths.

For users living in small towns and villages, Sharekhan has a browser-based mobile trading solution called Sharekhan Mini. This application works relatively smoothly on lower internet connection bandwidths and works as a better performance investment solution for users with 2G internet connections.

Some of the features of this application include:

Allows you to perform basic level analysis through charting and company information

You can invest in different classes such as Equity, Commodity, Currency as well as mutual funds

Data points such as 52-week high/low, gainers and losers of the day etc are displayed

This is an initiative from this broker towards robo-advisory and automated recommendations without any human intervention. You just need to provide specific inputs and correspondingly the tool will come up with specific recommendations on where you should be investing your money along with the holding period and risk level.

You will be asked questions such as your investment objective, preferred investing period, risk appetite etc.

It is recommended for long-term investors and people who do not have much investment and analysis skill at their disposal.

Sharekhan Web Trading

Sharekhan does offer a web-based trading application as well and to access it you need to browse the Sharekhan website, click on login and put in your credentials to start trading. Some of the features of this application are as follows:

Investment across multiple segments

A lightweight application requiring basic configuration

Order confirmations communicated via email and SMS

Research and recommendations from more than 120 companies listed on the stock market across 6 industry domains.

‘Pattern finder‘ feature helps the investor to screen stocks that are healthy for long-term investments.

‘O Alert‘ feature integrates the application with 3rd party technical analysis softwares for automated order alerts.

If you are interested specifically into commodity investments, then Sharekhan offers Sharekhan Commodity, a separate service for this particular segment.

There are multiple applications including ComTiger, ComMobile & ComMini depending on your trading preferences and style. Furthermore, the broker provides separate customer support and research to its respective clients.

The broker provides reasonable research quality for fundamental investing while there is room to improve when it comes to the quality of the technical calls.

The research and recommendations provided by Sharekhan are segregated based on the client risk appetite and investment objectives. In fact, the broker has segregated its clients and the corresponding reports it offers as:

Research for Traders

Research for Investors

Research for Mutual Fund Investors

There are multiple kinds of research products provided within each of these research types and based on your preferences you can subscribe to one or more kind of reports.

As far as accuracy and performance are concerned, the fundamental research provided by Sharekhan seems better than the technical research it offers. The broker has multiple communication channels opened up for its clients so that they get access to these reports on a timely basis.

Sharekhan Classroom

If you are someone who has opened your account with this full-service broker but still need to understand the different concepts of trading and investments, then Sharekhan Classroom may suit you well. There are multiple share market modules for traders and investors along with trading application demonstrations on a regular basis.

For instance, if you are an investor, then Sharekhan Classroom has modules such as:

Wealth with mutual funds

Goal Planning

Investment for Beginners

For traders or for users who are looking for short-term quick profits, then Sharekhan Classroom offers modules such as:

Furthermore, there are demos of online trading apps such as Sharekhan Mobile App, Trade Tiger, Web application etc. There are modules on Futures and Options trading as well for interested clients of Sharekhan.

Looking at the overall competitive space and consumer demands, this can be seen as a strong selling proposition placed ahead by the broker. However, the quality part is something for you to judge whether it is good enough in totality or not.

This needs to be known that all these courses are online in nature and if you are a client of this stockbroker, you would need to check the calendar opened up for these courses and register to the ones you are interested in.

As per the claims by this broker, till now, this Sharekhan Classroom service has been able to deliver around 1000 hours of training to 19,000+ clients.

Sharekhan is one biggest names in the stockbroking space in India. Thus, users have all the rights to have huge expectations from the broker in terms of reliability and quality service. The stockbroker provides the following channels to its users for customer service:

Toll-Free Number

Email

Phone

Email

Chat (intermittently available)

Offline Locations (through sub-brokers and franchise offices)

Social Media

When it comes to quality, this full-service stockbroker leaves no stone unturned in making sure users get a wide range of communication channels to get back to the broker. The support executives are decently trained and speak in multiple languages depending on the user’s location.

When it comes to the funds transfer process, the broker a detailed list of banks that you can integrate your trading account with. Here is the complete Sharekhan Bank List for your reference.

Without a doubt, Sharekhan lives up to its expectations when it comes to servicing its client base. No doubt, they have one of the highest numbers of active clients in India.

Sharekhan Pricing

Here are some of the quick details on the pricing charged by this full-service stockbroker:

Sharekhan Account Opening Fees

The trading and demat account charges for Sharekhan are listed out as below:

Trading Account Opening Charges

Classic Account - INR 750

Trade Tiger Account - INR 1000

Trading Account AMC (Annual Maintenance Charge)

INR 0

Demat Account Opening Charges

INR 0

Demat Account AMC (Annual Maintenance Charge)

INR 450

Here is the detailed listing of all the asset classes:

Equity Delivery

0.5% (Negotiable)

Equity Intraday

0.1%

Equity Futures

0.1% on the first leg and 0.02% on the second leg if squared off on the same day and 0.1% if squared off on any other day.

There are 2 plans proposed by Sharekhan to its customers – Prepaid and Postpaid. The idea is simple – more margin money you put into your account, less brokerage percentage you have to pay to the broker.

For instance, under the postpaid plan, if you put in margin money of ₹50,000 – you have to pay a brokerage of 0.4% while for a margin money of ₹5 Lakhs – the brokerage drops of 0.18%.

How does Brokerage Work?

“In the case of full-service stock brokers, the brokerage is percentage based. This implies if Sharekhan charges you 0.5% for delivery trades and your investment capital is ₹1,00,000 then the brokerage for that particular trade is ₹500.

Thus, it really depends on your capital and based on that the brokerage will be calculated. The minimum brokerage in case of Sharekhan is ₹20.”

Here are the complete details of both the plans:

Sharekhan Postpaid Plan

Under the postpaid plan, you have to deposit a certain amount of margin money into your account in advance.

If you open your account with an initial account deposit of ₹25,000, then you need to pay a brokerage rate of 0.5% for the delivery segment and similarly relatively high values for other segments.

At the same time, if you start with the trading account balance of ₹1,00,000 then your brokerage drops to half at 0.25% for delivery.

You need to understand that whatever balance you are adding to your account balance is refundable in nature and in fact, if needed you can reverse it back to your bank account after 3 days of depositing.

Sharekhan Prepaid Plan

Under the prepaid plan, you have to pay a certain amount in advance to get a better brokerage rate. Again, the more you pay upfront, less brokerage percentage is applied to your transactions.

Here is the detailed prepaid plan structure:

Prepaid Amount (INR)

Delivery

Option

Default

0.50%

Higher of 2.5% of Premium or INR 100

750

0.50%

Higher of 2.5% of Premium or INR 100

1,000

0.45%

Higher of 2.25% of Premium or INR 95

2,000

0.40%

Higher of 1.5% of Premium or INR 80

6,000

0.25%

Higher of 1% of Premium or INR 70

18,000

0.20%

Higher of 1% of Premium or INR 50

30,000

0.18%

Higher of 0.75% of Premium or INR 40

60,000

0.15%

Higher of 0.60% of Premium or INR 30

1,00,000

0.10%

Higher of 0.55% of Premium or INR 25

2,00,000

0.08%

Flat INR 10

Now, this plan is different from the postpaid plan mentioned above in the sense that whatever money you deposit is non-refundable in nature. This is a one-time subscription cost where you pay a specific amount and correspondingly a specific brokerage rate is set against your account.

Quick Example

If you provide non-refundable subscription amount of ₹2,000, then your brokerage for delivery will be 0.4% and at a subscription payment of ₹18,000, the brokerage rate falls to 0.20%.

Thus, depending on your preference, risk appetite, and disposable cash, you can pick a specific plan offered by Sharekhan. At the same time, a lot depends on your negotiation skills as well. If I were you and had a reasonable initial deposit to start with, I will make sure no negotiate till the last penny.

Here are the details on the transaction charges levied by Sharekhan. These charges are part of your overall payment like the brokerage or account opening/maintenance charges you pay, as a client:

Equity Delivery

0.00325%

Equity Intraday

0.00325%

Equity Futures

0.00190%

Equity Options

0.05000%

Currency Futures

0.00135%

Currency Options

0.04200%

Commodity

0.00230%

Sharekhan Exposure

Margins provided by Sharekhan is at the following level as per the asset class:

Equity

Upto 10 Times for Intraday & 5 Times for Delivery

Equity Futures

Upto 2 times for Intraday

Equity Options

No

Currency Futures

No

Currency Options

No

Commodity

Upto 2 times for Intraday

You are suggested to use exposure in your trades only if you understand the implications associated with the concept. There are certain risks associated that can damage your overall trading deposit. If, you have a clear understanding though, you should definitely be using it in your trades.

Disadvantages of Sharekhan

There are few concerns seen in Sharekhan trading, including:

Since Sharekhan does not have banking services, they do not offer a 3-in-1 account

The brokerage system is designed in such a way that if you are relatively new to the market, you will end up losing a lot of your money in brokerage itself

After hours order placing facility not available

There is a provision of minimum brokerage charges irrespective of the value of the trade, making the overall experience relatively expensive.

Their mobile apps are their weakest link when it comes to trading platforms. The broker needs to make sure it provides a consistently performing application.

“Sharekhan has received around 64 complaints for the financial year 2018-19 at BSE and NSE.”

Advantages of Sharekhan

Then, there are some obvious advantages to opening an account and trading through this full-service stockbroker. Here are some of the positives:

One of the top 3 stock broking houses in the country in terms of number of clients

It has remained as one of the most trustable stock broking brands

Huge offline presence with franchises and sub-brokers network

Highly scalable and innovative trading platforms

Call and trade facility is free.

One of most descent research team with high profile research experts

IPO facility through ASBA and your banking account available.

Multiple brokerage plans depending on your preference.

Share market education provided through the concept of Sharekhan Classrooms for the clients of the broker.

NRI Trading facility offered.

Conclusion

If you are a regular trader, then Sharekhan is definitely not the Stockbroker for you. In intra-day trading you will end up paying huge brokerage to the full-service broker, thus, eating up your profits. For users who are looking for high trust from a stockbroker and are fine to pay premium brokerage charge, then Sharekhan can be a good option.

The terminal-based platform from Sharekhan, Trade Tiger is a decent application while the rest of the softwares do need some upgrade.

In case you are interested to get started with trading, just enter Your details here to get a callback:

Open Free Demat Account

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Enter basic details here and a Callback will be arranged for You!

Your Name

Email *

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Next Steps:

Post this call You need to provide a few documents to start your account opening process. The documents required are as follows:

ID Proof

An address proof

Bank statement for the last 6 months

Passport sized photograph

AMC fees (if applicable)

Initial Deposit Account cheque

Once you are done with this, your account gets opened within 2-3 business days.

Sharekhan Membership Information:

Here are the details on the different membership details of the full-service stock broker:

Some Frequently Asked Questions (Sharkehan FAQs)

What is Sharekhan?

Sharekhan is a full-service stockbroker and currently is rated among the top 5 stockbrokers in terms of the overall active client base. The broker offers multiple services to its clients across different parts of India through its vast network of sub-brokers and franchise branches.

You can open your account online or offline by providing specific documentation and fees.

With this account, you can trade in the stock market along with investing in mutual funds, bonds, IPOs etc. This trading happens either through the trading applications, it provides to you or by using the dial and trade facility.

How can I get Sharekhan forms?

In case you are looking open a demat account with Sharekhan, you need to fill the Sharekhan Account Opening Form after carefully reading it in depth. Once you have filled in, you will need to submit a few self-attested documents that the executive will assist you in.

These forms are easily available online and you can also get the hard copy from the executive of this broker. Its customer service is relatively better than discount brokers as well.

Is Sharekhan a discount broker?

No, it is a full-service stockbroker with offline presence and free research provided to its clients.

Is it mandatory for me to open a Demat account?

Yes, if you are looking to open your trading account with the full-service stockbroker, it is mandatory that you must open your demat account along as well.

Is Sharekhan Trustworthy?

This full service stockbroker has been around since 2000, makes 100s of crores of annual profit, is being owned by BNP Paribas (one of the largest financial houses in the world), is ranked third in India in terms of number of active clients, has a network of 1950 sub-broker and franchise offices in India.

So yea, it is certainly trustable.

Having said that, you are advised to have a regular check on your ledgers and account statements to be 100% sure on a regular basis.

Is Sharekhan good for Beginners?

Not really. Sharekhan charges premium brokerage and beginners or small investors with little capital might not be able to sustain for long as their take-home profit will be very less.

How does Sharekhan calculate Brokerage?

Being a full-service stockbroker, Sharekhan charges percentage based brokerage charges. That implies, depending on your trade capital a certain percentage (based on the plan you chose, see Brokerage plans above) will be multiplied by it and correspondingly brokerage amount gets calculated. There is a certain minimum slab as well in case you trade in small chunks of capital.

What is the current brokerage structure of Sharekhan in India?

There are two brokerage plans apart from the default one. Please see the Brokerage Plans section above for more details.

Can I invest in Mutual funds through Sharekhan?

Yes, you can invest in mutual funds, insurance as well as in IPOs using this full-service stock broker’s services. Apart from that, the broker has recently introduced Sharekhan Neo (explained above). Using this tool, you can get recommendations on the different mutual funds you can invest in based on your risk appetite, return expectations, holding period etc.

The access to Sharekhan Neo can be taken post you open your account through Sharekhan InstaMF, an exclusive service for mutual funds investments through this broker.

How to Put Stop Loss in Sharekhan?

We will take a sell-trade example through Trade Tiger to explain this concept. Once your order is placed, right click on the scrip you want to place the stop-loss on and choose the ‘Square Off’ option.

The selling window will be displayed on the screen where you are required to mention your stop-loss price. You may choose to add a little buffer is the market is relatively volatile, however, this is a very subjective matter.

The stop-loss will be executed once the price point set by you is breached.

Does Sharekhan allow Forex trading?

As it is known that the concept of Forex trading is not legal in India and no broker, including Sharekhan, can allow you to invest in this segment. However, you can certainly perform currency trading where 4 pairs of currencies are regulated by SEBI.

This form of trading is allowed by this broker as well.

How to apply IPO in Sharekhan?

Sharekhan does not provide you with a direct option to invest in IPOs. However, there are still two ways you can go ahead.

You may choose to use the ASBA method for IPO investment where you need to integrate your bank account with the demat details of your Sharekhan account. Once done, you may enter the details of your overall IPO investment in your online banking portal. You will also need to check whether your bank provides the ASBA provision or not.

If you do not have an online net banking facility, you can visit your bank brand, fill in the DP details and the corresponding IPO investment information. The bank executive will provide you with an acknowledgement slip once you submit all the information.

Otherwise, you may visit the local sub-broker office of Sharekhan and fill in all your IPO investment requirements to invest as well.

I forgot password of my Sharekhan account? How can I recover?

Changing password of an account with this broker is relatively easy. All you need to do is provide your valid UserId along with entering a captcha displayed on your screen.

An SMS and email will be generated and sent to your verified contact details. You will be required to enter the OTP (One-time password) sent to you. Once verified, you will be able to enter a new password against your userId.

Make sure to follow some of the password policies Sharekhan has kept in place, such as:

Advice to change your password at least once a month.

Password length should be in the range of 8 to 12 characters only with a combination of alpha-numeric characters to go along with at least one special character.

I forgot my Sharekhan User Id. How can I recover it?

Although, your registered userId can be seen in the different emails and at least the welcome email you may have received when your account got activated.

However, you can recover your user id by going through the broker’s website.

All you need to do is, go to the forgot user id screen, enter your verified mobile number or your registered email id along with entering the captcha displayed on the screen. You will be sent a one-time password (OTP) that needs to be confirmed and your user id will be sent to your registered contact details.

Are there any hidden charges I need to pay while trading through Sharekhan?

There are no hidden charges but you need to make sure you understand different types of charges levied such as Brokerage, Account opening and maintenance charges, transaction charges, Stamp duty, STT, Service tax, SEBI Turnover charges.

It is advised to get all kinds of charges emailed from the executive while opening your account with the broker. Apart from that, you must check your ledger, contract notes, statements on a weekly or a bi-weekly frequency so that you are aware of all sorts of charges levied on your trades.

How can I close my Sharekhan account?

Closing your account is not as easy as opening it. You can find the complete details on how to close the account with Sharekhan here with a video review to go along with the Sharekhan Account Closure form. There are a few formalities that need to be taken care of along with any unpaid balance that you would need to deposit to the broker.